Review of The Sum of Her Parts by Alan Dean Foster

This is the final segment of a 3 part story. The picture of the world that was portrayed in the first book, “The Human Blend” was quite intriguing. The future was one where global warming had fulfilled all of the dire warnings we have been hearing for years. The oceans had risen which flooded the low-lying coastal cities. To combat the rising water, some cities had been built on stilts or floats. The warmer climate had driven tropical animals toward what had formerly been the temperate regions. More powerful tropical storms hit the coastlines more frequently. They had fashioned large moveable shields to divert the winds. And the most engaging part of the new world was the dramatically improved ability to adjust ones self. To have any sort of modification to your body that you could imagine, as long has you could pay for it.

This was the world in the first book. The third book takes place entirely in the desert of South Africa, on the lands of a South African company, SAEC. The two protagonists of this series, Dr. Ingrid Seastrom and Whispr continue on their quest to discover what the metallic thread found in the first book, has hidden inside of its encrypted data. They are trying to break into the SAEC research facility, which is in the middle of a large heavily guarded and patrolled desert.

I was hoping that Mr. Foster would be using the setting that was developed in the first book as a basis for many more stories, but the ending of this book makes that very unlikely.

If you have started reading the series, you will want to finish it. I think that the series had more promise than it delivered. I give this 3 out of 5 stars.

I received this book for free from Net Galley.

Title Details

Random House Publishing Group

Del Rey

Paperback: 288 pages

Publisher: Del Rey (November 27, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0345512022

ISBN-13: 978-0345512024

Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces

Price: 15.00

Currency: USD

Edition: Paperback

Description

In this thrilling science fiction adventure-the triumphant conclusion to the Tipping Point trilogy-New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster returns to a near future in which genetic manipulation and extreme body modification have changed profoundly what it means to be human.

Dr. Ingrid Seastrom was once a respected American physician. Whispr, whose body has been transformed to preternatural thinness, was once a streetwise thief. Now, in a world on the edge of catastrophe from centuries of environmental exploitation, they are allies-thrust together by fate to unravel an impossible mystery-even as they are stalked by a relentless killer.

Ingrid and Whispr are hunted fugitives bound together by a thread: a data-storage thread made of a material that cannot exist, yet somehow does. Their quest to learn its secrets-and, in Whispr’s case, sell them to the highest bidder-has brought them to South Africa’s treacherous Namib desert. Beyond its dangers waits a heavily guarded research facility that promises answers, if they can survive long enough to get there. But that won’t be easy, not with Napun Molé on their trail. They’ve already escaped the assassin twice, and as far as Molé is concerned, finishing them off isn’t just a job anymore . . . it’s personal.

About the Author

Alan Dean Foster has written in a variety of genres, including hard science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: The Approaching Stormand the popular Pip & Flinx novels, as well as novelizations of several films, including Transformers, Star Wars, the first three Alien films, and Alien Nation. His novel Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction, the first science fiction work ever to do so. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona, in a house built of brick that was salvaged from an early twentieth century miners’ brothel. He is currently at work on several new novels and media projects.